I'm an IT professional, so I know how...

[azzy23.livejournal.com]

I love this statement. It's usually said with a "tone"... sort of a "How dare you think *I* don't know everything, you tiny-brain."

And is usually followed by stunned amazement when I show them they can:

ftp from the run line
drag and drop to the run line.

Because they're pros.

Yeah.

Comments

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

I learned a while back that just because my answer is right it doesn't mean yours can't be right too....

Yeah - it's great when you're right. :-)

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

In time you can develop a keene sense of how much the person knows and doesn't know. And hopefully that person isn't being an ass about it. Typically when I call up tech support it's either because the problem is on there end, or the customer tried to call them and didn't get anywhere and I'm acting as a translator. In either case I try to be respectful. I tell them usually fairly early "I'm a onsite tech hired by Mr/Mrs Smith, and I'm here to help work thru this issue".

It's a tough line. I know from expereince on the other end of tech support you can hear that a lot and get a lot of idiots. Hell I've even had bad days. I called Adelphia last week because I couldn't get a DHCP assignment. I called them before I did a long shut off of the modem (I only reset it a couple times). My only excuse was that it was 8am and my brain wasn't working yet.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

They're GUI brats. Plain and simple. Take away their mouse and they shit their pants.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

Give me DOS or give me death!

*nix will work ok too.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

LOAD "*",8,1

[inahandbasket]

hah, you can drag and drop to the run line!
I've never once had a reason to do that, but it's good to know. ^_^
Oh look, you can drag-drop into a command window too. Now THAT will come in handy!

...

::skulks back to his *nix boxes::

[batboymaxx.livejournal.com]

I know the ones. They start with "I'm a _____ (insert geeky job title or certification acronym.)" Those are almost always tough calls, and unnecessarily long ones, because they almost never want to do any troubleshooting and are often extremely argumentative. I can't tell you how many times, back in my ISP tech support days, I had to battle with them to get them to do something like reseat a cable or powercycle a CPE, and then, once they did that, their problem was solved -often much to their dismay or even anger. I always try really, really hard not to be that guy when I have to call any sort of Support center.

[prozacnation.livejournal.com]

I love that line.

Which is sometimes follow by "How do you do a release/renew?"

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

diR on the PETS

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

These are the folks that seem to enjoy randomly clicking and restarting their computer, not to mention interrupting everything you try to say to them. It's almost as if they want an audience while they fuck up their systems. Reminds me of my daughter, when she was 2 and was determined to make her own breakfast of cereal and milk. I had to be there to watch as things just imploded. But then, she was 2. She does much better now.

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

. sort of a "How dare you think *I* don't know everything, you tiny-brain."

my reaction to that is always, I didn't call you for technical assistance pal so let's try my way shall we?

[ravan.livejournal.com]

My line is "Sorry, I do this stuff for a living." when I have to call my cable company (comtrash) about their $#^#$^#$^ router being fubarred, and they want me to restart my box to fix it, and I've already done that three times (even though I might be running Linux). I will have troubleshot into the tier 2 already, and they want me to reconfigure my box the same way I already have it, or other clueless script crap in broken English. Half the time I'm calling them as a courtesy to let them know they have a router down! They don't have a damned script point for it, so I very nicely try to get them to escalate to the next level that's *not* script driven.

I admit, there is nothing more annoying to a support person than dealing with untrained support people. Especially when they cut you off in the middle of your description of the troubleshooting you've alreaady done to ask "Did you reboot your computer?", when you've already stated that the problem happens on multiple computers...

Sorry for the rant, I'm in a shitty mood today.

I do get the same "I'm an IT professional, so I know..." from some of my programmers on problems with their windows and linux boxen.

[ravan.livejournal.com]

I try not to call support, because I *know* I can be a bitch. When I do I'm thoroughly frustrated, which is never good....

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Is the run line anything like the command line interface?

[lrdjester.livejournal.com]

You got to a tier 2 tech?

I spent over 3 hours between phon and chat trying to tell them that their DNS supporting their mail server was not updating.

I switched a client from her ISP to mine and she canceled early.

Thing is, I have a cable modem and the client side DNS was updated two days before the one they use for email support. So, Comcast customers could browse the site, just not email my client.

I almost lost that client.

Comcasts scripted tech response was sorry, unless you are using Outlook Express (elevator to hell) or Comcast webmail, we can't help you, I'm on Linux and my customer, also a Comcast customer is on a Mac. So, I did a test via webmail and when i failed they still said there was nothing they could do. I asked if there was any way to talk to someone in a network support role or perhaps email server support, but they said they had no channel between them and tier two.

Very frustrating.

[jecook]

Ah, but can you make for C64 do stupid drive tricks? I used to be able to a long time ago, before I purged all that crap out of my brane.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Start - Run...

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Ah, but can you make for C64 do stupid drive tricks?

Someone's been watching too much Borat :P

[jecook]

No, just can't type worth crap late at night. :)

the 'for' should have been 'your'.

although the first reading is kinda funny too...

"In Soviet Russia, C64 does stupid drive tricks to YOU!"

::ducks::

[taleya.livejournal.com]

iiiiiiiiin khaaazistan we like to make for C64 do tricks. We make it do for tricks like fly through windows!

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

A former customer of mine was having a rotten time logging into our WebDAV server, despite my having read the password to him carefully and repeatedly, stroke by stroke. At one point he huffed something about being a highly-trained IT professional. Courtesy of the mute button, I muttered in reply, 'And I'm an English major who does computers as a hobby. Must be why I get the concept of case-sensitive and you don't.'

If I recall correctly, I finally wound up remoting into his machine and typing out his password in a Notepad window. 'I AM typing that!' he almost-yelled. So I opened a fresh browser window on his screen, brought up the site, and successfully logged him in. Twice. Once by typing in the password I'd just typed into Notepad, then logging out and then back in by pasting the password from his Notepad screen as proof that I wasn't changing anything on him. His reply? 'Oh.'

[ravan.livejournal.com]

You got to a tier 2 tech?

No, I've just troubleshot past tier 1. Their phone support is abyssmal, and I just about have to make the dronetech cry to get a supervisor. IIRC, sometimes the supervisors know how to get to tier 2.

My gear is Windows and Linux behind a firewall/switch. I actually got someone in chat this year who knew about that kind of setup (and had it himself) - it must have been a fluke.

[ravan.livejournal.com]

*splork* Oh, that's good. Capslock on? Or just brainlock?

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

More like vapor lock between the ears. (Brainlock requires a brain, by definition, no? ;) ) The server has the usual 'three strikes' setup so I had to keep bugging the server guy to unlock the user's account. After the third request (all during one phone call with this person), the guru's note that the login was unlocked (again) was accompanied by the comment, 'Maybe he should quit typing with his elbows.'